IU soccer No. 2 overall seed for NCAA

The drama of Monday’s NCAA Men’s Soccer Tournament selection show lasted less than a minute from an Indiana perspective.

That’s when Wake Forest was named the No. 1 overall seed to a handful of half-hearted Hoosier groans.

A little over 10 minutes later the Indiana men’s soccer team was officially awarded the No. 2 overall seed for the second straight year, which received a warm golf clap from the IU players and coaches gathered on the balcony of the Spirit of ’76 lounge in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.

“Once we saw Wake got the first seed, we all assumed we had the No. 2 seed,” senior Trevor Swartz said of the anticlimactic moment.

Not that the Hoosiers were complaining.

“We were No. 2 last year, and honestly it doesn’t really matter what seed we are, what rank we are,” another senior, Frankie Moore, said. “We expect to win every game and we’re going to approach every single game the same way. At the end of the day, it’s a reflection of what we’ve done so far this season, and I think we’ve had a pretty good season so far.”

That season includes Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles, giving Indiana (17-2-1) a top-four seed along with Wake, which beat the Hoosiers 2-1 in overtime in the season opener, No. 3 Kentucky, which topped IU 3-0, and No. 4 Louisville.

IU will make its 32nd straight NCAA appearance and 43rd overall, taking on the Connecticut-Rhode Island winner Sunday in a 1 p.m. match at Armstrong Stadium.

“I think in the end with the body of work there are a lot of similarities between us and Wake Forest, and at the end of all of that you have to go head to head,” Indiana coach Todd Yeagley said. “So I was comfortable with the committee if that’s the talking points — it’s pretty tight, both outstanding seasons, but Wake did beat us in overtime.

“… I have no problem with them being awarded (No. 1) and don’t feel slighted one bit. The top four is really the key. Where you land is not that big of a deal, it’s just having that opportunity to continue to host if you advance.”

IU is in perfect position to win their third trophy! But soccer is a cruel sport. You have to play aggressively and with great discipline. You have to be free flowing and within your structure. A little “luck” never hurts. Go IU achieve your dreams and your goals!

I looked at the brackets for the tournament and unbelievably, I see Duke. They are great in basketball, go to bowls every year in football, go to Soccer tournament, that is one helluva athletic program.

Duke has been to 5 bowl games in the last 10 years. That’s a 50% clip and hardly “every year.” Previous to 2012, they had been to 2 bowls in fifty years. Pinstripe, Chick-fil-A, Belk(I believe that’s a department store bowl), Quick Lane….? Stellar bowls, indeed. Is their an Indeed Bowl? Probably so….

Let’s also keep in mind just how many more bowl opportunities there are in this “great” era of college football when nearly 1/3 of all D-1 football programs get to go to a bowl.

It is …and what sort of bowls are they? Are they elite level bowl games? No, they are suck bowls….College football now offers so many damn bowls that there is no correlation between being a “great” program and going to a bowl game. Com’on, my Scoop brothers. .500 gets you to a bowl. Beat some patsies in the non-conference and win a couple against the bottom-feeders of a conference and you’re in a bowl? That’s the measure of greatness in college football?

These are not great traditional basketball schools now finding their groove in football. It’s college football lowering the bar for extra money and feeding into addictions of trends in unjustified desires to be great when not great. College football is becoming a birthday party for every 10-year-old in the neighborhood willing to pin a tail on a donkey and get some free cake….Bigger party means you’re more popular…and you’re GREAT!
Forty to fifty bowl games is akin to allowing 100 teams into the NCAA basketball tournament. Are they all “great” basketball programs? No. Nor is a college football team making a habit of intermittent cupcake bowl games Com’on, guys. Get real with this.

You have to look at what bowls are in the recent history….Outside of one decent bowl, I would say most of Duke and IU’s bowls are of low tier cupcake variety.

e.g. Kentucky looked very strong in football until they played somebody.

A college going to a bowl in football is very far from an equivalency to their basketball program going deep in the NCAA basketball tournament. I would say a low tier bowl is equivalent to an NIT bid in basketball…

Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings and wedding registry(courtesy: Wikipedia).

Such an honor to play at a Belk Bowl….lol. What’s next? You just got an invite to play at the ‘Exxon Valdez Bowl’ held in Alaska! Great opportunity to clean-up your turnovers and play a slick game of football!